


This Is It, Boys (This Is War)

by pumpkinless



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Crying, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:04:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pumpkinless/pseuds/pumpkinless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas is leaving. He’s dressed in his uniform already, bag slung over his shoulder, hat on his head, and he’s going off to war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is It, Boys (This Is War)

Dean buries his nose in Cas’ neck, and he swears to himself that he isn’t going to cry, not in front of Castiel’s parents and his younger brothers. They’re all watching, bird’s eye view on this thing Dean and Cas have been hiding from them, but he can’t control himself.

Cas is leaving. He’s dressed in his uniform already, bag slung over his shoulder, hat on his head, and he’s going off to war. Eighteen years old and he’s just a kid leaving to join the adult world where Dean cannot follow him. He tried, he fucking tried, but they won’t let him enlist with his poor eyesight. Even now, the bridge of his glasses is digging into his nose, reminding him that Castiel is going to die alone out there.

The boys, the ones who aren’t yet men, they’re always the ones who die.

“Dean,” Castiel says softly, but it’s a warning as much as a consolation. Dean knows they have an audience, but it doesn’t stop him from holding Castiel tighter. He’s losing his childhood friend, his best friend, and the love of his life all in one go, and fuck him if he doesn’t try to hang on as long as he can.

Cas says something that Dean doesn’t hear before pulling him into the sitting room and closing the door quietly behind them.

Tearing his head up, Dean leans his forehead against Cas’. He’s crying, they’re both crying, and Dean knows this is just as hard for Cas as it is for him.

“Why do you have to go?” Dean whispers, holding Castiel’s face in his hands. “Why—” He can’t finish as a sob wells up, and he pushes it back, because this is not the time.

“They need soldiers,” Castiel says with a proud look in his eye. Dean knows Cas has been dreaming of being a soldier his entire life, that he’s always been waiting for the day he could serve his country and make his father proud. That was before the war, though, before the Germans started killing their men by the hundreds.

“You’re leaving me,” Dean says. He feels small, insignificant, whiney, like a rich kid losing his favorite toy.

“I’ll be back for you, Dean,” Castiel swears. He locks his arms around Dean’s waist, drawing them closer together. “We’ll be together; we’ll get a house in the country and—”

“You’re going to die!” Dean cries, and he’s sobbing now. “You act like you’ll be back, but they all die, and you—you’ll die too.”

“No,” Castiel says, and Dean shakes him helplessly.

“No, no,” he says, shaking his head so their noses bump and his tears mingle with Castiel’s. He wipes one away with his thumb, but he can only fix so much, and there are more falling down his face. “You can’t control that, Cas. You can’t promise me that.”

“Believe, Dean,” Castiel says fiercely. “God will not let our love lie to waste.”

“Worry about the Germans, not God!” Dean says, voice cracking in all the wrong places. “This isn’t…hell, Cas, this isn’t about God.”

“God will keep me alive,” Castiel murmurs. “He wants me to live; he wants me to come back to you. How can you not see that, Dean? How can you miss how much he has blessed us with?”

“You know how I feel about God,” Dean says, because that’s all wrapped up in the same place as his mother’s death, his father’s alcoholism, his brother’s heroin addiction, and the feeling that everything is all his fault.

“Believe for me, then,” Castiel says, ghosting his lips over Dean’s. “Dean, I need you to believe that I’ll come back to you. You have to remember me, because I can’t do this alone.”

“I love you,” Dean says, leaning into the kiss. He won’t lie to Castiel. “And I will never forget you, God, Cas, how could you think that?”

“This is how it starts,” Cas says. “The rest of our lives, it starts right now, and when I get back, we’ll be so happy together.”

Dean just nods, kisses him, and lets Castiel run his fingers through Dean’s hair. There will be no hiding what’s happening from the rest of Cas’ family, but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t, because Castiel is still going to die.

It’s the start of the rest of his life, certainly, the part without Castiel.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted a while back on my [tumblr](http://pumpkinlessidjit.tumblr.com). Might turn it into a small series? I don't know yet.


End file.
